Southern Indiana is an oasis free from Lyme disease, the condition most associated with the arachnids that are the second most common parasitic disease vector on Earth.

But there are signs that this low-risk environment is changing, both in Indiana and in other regions of the U.S, says Indiana University biology professor Keith Clay.  Lyme disease has been detected just a few hours north of the region around Tippecanoe River State Park and Lake Michigan's Indiana Dunes, and Clay said the signs are there that new tick species, and possibly the pathogens they carry, are entering the area. 

In an experiment, rats who saw another rat drowning extended a helping paw to rescue it, and the behavior was even more pronounced in rats that previously had a watery near-death experience. 

This prosocial behavior, even if it does not gain any advantage from it, was also noted when rats helped members of their own species to escape from a tubelike cage. For a new study, the team conducted three sets of experiments involving a pool of water. One rat was made to swim for its life in the pool, with another being in a cage adjacent to it. The soaked rat could only gain access to a dry and safe area in the cage if its cagemate opened a door for it.

Does anyone actually buy the clothes that show up on runways a few times per year? People do, and the thinking goes that in order to sell them, models need to look thin. Some cultural advocates have insisted that overweight women who look more 'real' - 65 percent of Americans are overweight - will sell more clothes, but that is in defiance of marketing principles which have shown that people buy on what they want to look like, not what they do look like.

The use of novel psychoactive substances, synthetic compounds with stimulant or hallucinogenic effects, is on the rise and the diversity and breadth of these substances - a change in one atom means an illegal drug is no longer illegal - has led policymakers, law enforcement officers, and healthcare providers to feel overwhelmed. 

A recent review has led to proposing a "forecasting method" for policymakers and researchers to focus on what is likely to happen with new recreational drugs. Dr. John Stogner of UNC Charlotte says a five step forecasting method will rely on the availability of a potential user base, the costs of the drug (legal and otherwise), the subjective experience, the substance’s dependence potential, and the overall ease of acquisition.

The plant-based Mediterranean diet is an ongoing diet fad, and proponents now have some new ammunition - it is associated with improved cognitive function in a study of older adults in Spain, according to a paper in JAMA Internal Medicine.

A numerical model estimates the  potential impact of environmental processes on contaminant fate of growth-promoting hormones used in beef production and leads the authors to believe they may persist in the environment at higher concentrations and for longer durations than previously thought - and they also believe their model illustrates potential weaknesses in the U.S. system of regulating hazardous substances, which focuses on individual compounds and but cannot always account for complex and sometimes surprising chemical reactions that occur in the environment